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11.30.2015

I just want to pop in with a fun little Christmas card real quick today.

I was going for an aurora borealis look, using the Winter Scene stamp, but I used a little too much water. I still liked the background so I decided to stick this adorable moose on top. I colored him using my Zig pens, and it was so smooth and easy!

Thanks for stopping in today and God bless!
My sassy little sister (the one who actually pays attention to my cards and gives me helpful [sometimes] criticism) says I should thank you for spending your time here and admiring my creative genius, because it makes me appreciate the wonders of life and the wonders that you are.

11.26.2015

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's a real quick card for ya - it was my first attempt at THIS card for the Hero Arts blog. I wanted a brighter version for the blog, but I decided this one was still worthwhile to share. :)

11.25.2015

I knew I had to play along with this month's Papertrey Ink blog hop once I got my new stamps in - the Winter Woods stamp set is quickly making itself one of my all time favorite stamp sets.
Here's the inspiration pic...

Since I am sorely lacking the birthday cards department, I thought I'd make birthday cards for the hop - plus, that sentiment really is so pretty.

I didn't have any music note stamps, so I drew them in myself with a Micro pen.

This second card is full on Peacock Feathers ink - I love how easily this card is to change up.

And a video for you! I actually filmed it just this morning, probably the shortest one on record - about half hour! I rarely make cards that fast, much less while filming!

If you are having problems viewing this video, please try watching it HERE on YouTube.

I was going for a Northern Lights kind of thing, though it's definitely harder to tell in the photograph than in real life. The watercolor cardstock I used was pretty old - I use a simple sheet protector to stash my cardstock scraps and pieces, and for this card, I pulled out a piece that was at least a couple years old and had a little bit of blue painting on it already.
I used a mix of Distress Inks and Tattered Angels to make the night sky, and then used some pearlescent Martha Stewart white acrylic paint to add some white "stars." Then I stamped some extra little stars here and there for some deeper pops of purple.

I covered the entire background with a couple coats of Wink of Stella, and it is SO pretty and shimmery! For the border, I sewed without thread to get the piercings, but if you had a border die/rectangle cutout, you could always use that.

Thanks so much for stopping in today and God bless!

ETA: I'm cleaning out my scrap room bit by bit (I'm probably going to be moving when I graduate this upcoming May, so I'm trying to get a headstart on this now) and have posted lots of stamps HERE. A lot of them I'm offering for free, as long as you pay for shipping and promise them a good home. ;)

11.16.2015

I had so much fun making this little scene - I can't seem to stop using this wreath stamp! One of the things I love about this multi-step stamp set is that you don't have to stamp every layer. I've already made several cards with this wreath stamp set, and I don't think I've used the second or third layer yet!

I added some glitter to the wreath - this was one of the last things I did to the card, and I was going for more of a snowy glitter look, but I didn't want to have too many textures going on in the card, so I left it at this more translucent glitter.

Again, I used my ombre ink for the wreath, and it adds such a nice little touch. When I use the Hero Arts ombre ink, I have a special way of doing it.

Basically, when I use the ombre ink pads, not only do I do the little stamp "dance" recommended on the Hero Arts website (which is moving your stamp up and down the pad to get a more even ombre look), but I really ink up my stamp.I press my stamp pretty firmly against the ink pad until I'm sure it's completely covered with ink, then I lightly tap it against the ink pad to even out the ink and prevent the ink from pooling on any particular spot on the stamp. It is especially important to do this if you're stamping on vellum, because the more ink you have on your stamp, the easier it is to slide and smear on the vellum.

I don't have the brick stencil background, so to create my brick background, I first embossed my brick die into the red cardstock, then I used the die to cut into a piece of thin transparency. I used this transparency as a cheap stencil, and added some more red coloring to the bricks using some Distress Inks. This is a great way to stretch your dies - use them as stencils!

Giveaway - Hero Arts stashed away THREE of the November 2015 My Monthly Hero kits to giveaway to readers of this hop. The winners will be randomly chosen from all of the blog hop comments, across all blogs, received by 11:59pm PST on Sunday, November 22nd. Check the Hero Arts blog for the announcement of the winner on Tuesday, November 24th.

That's it for me! I'm the last stop on the hop, but if you missed any of the other blogs, here is the full hop list!

11.10.2015

It feels like I haven't played along with a non-design team challenge in forever, so I'm here today with a pretty vibrant and funky card.

I wanted to play with my el cheapo embossing powders in a funky way, so I pulled out some bright cardstock scraps and went to town. The powers are from Hampton Arts - I like their gold, white and clear embossing powders, but their colored embossing powders aren't very crisp (luckily that's okay for this card). They also smell kinda funny, like chalk.

To make sure that the sentiment could be distinguishable from the distracting background, I stamped the sentiment on vellum and framed it with a black cardstock die cut circle. I had the "for everything" banner already stamped from a previous project, but I didn't like how it turned out for that project. However, since this was just a quicky project, I decided to use it - I really love to use up my scraps, imperfect as they are.

11.05.2015

This card is from May 2013, when I wasn't too lazy to pull out my Silhouette to make cards. Those days are LONGGGGG gone.

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This card was just so darn hard to photograph - the black is so black in real life, but in the photo, it looks blah. So I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that this card is more dramatic IRL. ;)

11.04.2015

...no, Masked Halo is not the name of some new superhero (at least, not that I know of...), but rather the technique I used for today's cards and video.
The video is me playing along with Altenew's second video challenge.

I used Altenew's Painted Flowers for both cards - goodness, if you could wear down stamp sets to nubs like erasers, I would totally have worn this set down by now.

Just a quick note of apology for my lack of responding to e-mails, comments, posts, etc - it seems my professors want to make up for fall break, and so I've gotten a load of school work dumped on me this week. Hopefully I can clamber out of it soon...

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